The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Alaska Airlines. This is the only official authorized source of negotiating communications by the Committee.

January 19-21, 2016, AMFA and Alaska Airlines met to continue negotiations at the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Seattle Airport – Southcenter in Tukwila, Washington. AMFA and the Company started the first day, which was a half-day session, developing some ground rules around the negotiations process and rules for observers going forward.

Rules For Observers

Observers are welcome to enter the room at the start of the session and following breaks.

Observers are not participants and will refrain from talking during the session.

Observers shall be barred from testifying in any subsequent hearing concerning any statements or proposals discussed in bargaining.

Observers will be limited to the capacity of the room the session is held in, with no less than six (6) available observer seats, three (3) from each local.

When observer list exceeds capacity of the room, the RSVP list will take priority and AMFA will be responsible for determining who stays.

AMFA will introduce new observers to the room following each break.

Observers will not be addressed for opinion directly by the Company.

Cell phones shall be placed on silent during sessions.

No audio or video will be recorded during sessions.

No documents will be removed from sessions, including screen shots and/or pictures of documents/presentations from the meeting room(s).

Then we jointly reviewed all of the proposals from both sides and ranked them on a scale from "one" to "five" and "E." The proposals ranked "one" conceptually should be easy to accomplish, "five" being the more difficult proposals, and with "E" being economics. We ended the day setting our agenda for the next day.

On January 20 we began by going thought the articles that had no proposed changes by either side, and we tentatively agreed (TA’ed) them. Those were Article 1 Purpose of the Agreement, Article 3 Status of Agreement, Article 9 Seniority, Article 16 Grievance Procedures, Article 17 System Board of Adjustment, Article 24 Savings Clause, Article 30 (Intentionally Left Blank), and Article 31 Union Shop.

We then moved to Letters of Agreements and discussed them one-by-one to determine if they should be incorporated into the body of the Agreement or left as Letters of Agreements in the back. The results of those discussions are as follows: Letter #1 will be removed due to the last person the letter covered passed away last year; letters 2-5, 7, 8, and 14 will be kept as is as Letters of Agreements in the back of the agreement. The remaining letters not mentioned will be discussed at a later date for changes and/or incorporation.

We then moved to Article 21 General and Miscellaneous, and discussed the possibility of adding new language to the agreement to address our members’ concerns over video and audio surveillance. After much debate we agreed to table the issue and have attorneys for both sides discuss at a later date. This is the only issue identified as needing to be addressed in that Article.

Next was Article 15 Transportation. We had discussions regarding commuter passes, the usage of and what other workgroups have in their agreement. We discussed the possibility of adding language to delegate different family members in exchange for parents for travel privileges. We also discussed the possibility of adding language for moving expenses for a forced relocation. No agreements were made in this Article. These issues will be discussed later when the Company can get more data.

On January 21 we started on Article 11 Leaves of Absence, and we discussed what the Union pays the Company for the override when paying back Union Business time. We then moved on and completed the session discussing Article 4 Classifications; the discussion centered on productivity and the Company’s ability to have the appropriate classification performing appropriate tasks. The Company sees adding language to capture all tasks currently being performed by technician helpers as a start. Other areas that were discussed that may help with productivity are the ability to cross-utilize more efficiently, a better selection process for Leads, and managing the performance of Leads/Trainers. The last topic addressed was the idea of an apprenticeship program to develop talent. No agreements or specific language were written for this Article and will be further discussed at another session.

Our Committee would like to thank the observers that took the time to attend. Remember to check your Local’s website for the most up-to-date information on times and locations of negotiations: www.amfa14.org and www.amfa32.com. If you have any questions, please contact your Airline Representative or attend your next monthly membership meeting for a question and answer period.

If you plan to attend a future negotiation session, please contact your Airline Representative to RSVP, by RSVP’ing you are guaranteed a seat if the room is full.

Upcoming Negotiation Date- Upcoming meeting accommodations and times are yet to be determined.

February 8 - 10 in Anchorage. The Agenda for this session will include Article 2 Scope, LOA #9 Job Security, Article 5 Hours of Service, and Article 6 Overtime.
February 29 - March 2 in Seattle
March 28 - 30 in Portland
April 11 – 14 in Seattle
May 9 – 12 in Phoenix